TV SCHEDULING

Schedule

The pattern in which media programmes are arranged and presented to the audience.

TV schedules are categorised into different segments.

◦Breakfast

◦Daytime

◦Children’s

◦Peak/Prime time

◦After 9/post watershed

Popular Genres of TV

◦Drama

◦Soap

◦Reality

◦News

◦Documentaries

◦Sitcoms

Target Audiences◦BBC ONE – Everyone

◦BBC 2 – Specific audience

◦ITV 1 – Everyone

◦Channel 4 – Teenagers/young adults

◦Channel 5 – Everyone

◦Reapeats from BBC2 & Channel 4/5 = 50%

BBC1 & ITV1 = 2/3%

The Watershed

◦The time in which 9 o’clock can air television with inappropriate themes or language. Although this is becoming close to 10 o’clock.

Hammocking

◦The strategic placement of a programme between two other programmes; positioning a new series between two well-established shows that appeal to the same target audience often gives the right viewers an opportunity to sample the new series.

Pre-Echo

◦Programme placed on schedule to come before a popular programme.

Inheritance

◦Programme placed after a successful programme in the hopes of inheriting some of it’s audience.

◦On the surface inheritance makes more sense that the way the TV schedules work these days programmes do not start at the time newspapers/magazines tell us they are. This is deliberate as trailers for other programmes are shown which is clever.

Channel Loyalty

In the 1970s viewers would generally stay tuned to one channel and watch it through the night. These days there are a variety of channels, so if the programme does not get the audiences attention, viewers will (channel surf) The sense of shared experience is now becoming an issue of the past due to audience fragmentation.